The Latest from Boing Boing

Ye olde automaton kills Victorian man In 1876, a fellow named Maybrook was killed by the hammer of a chiming automaton; Jeremy Clay, author of "The Burglar Caught by a Skeleton: And Other Singular Tales from the Victorian Press," tells Maybrook's tale over at the BBC News. Read the rest... The sand dunes of Maine How overly-intensive farming and land mismanagement created a 40-acre desert in the middle of Maine. Read the rest... How technologies touch each other Improved computer modeling is allowing scientists to experiment with fusion reactor designs abandoned generations ago. Read the rest... The science politics behind the discovery of HIV In 1985, the virus that causes AIDS had two names (HTLV-III and LAV) and two teams of researchers vying for credit as its discoverers. Read the rest... Could super flu escape the laboratory? A new paper estimates the risk of a laboratory-enhanced flu strain escaping said laboratory at between 5 and 60 percent. Maryn McKenna explains what that wide, wide spread actually means. Read the rest... You Are Not a Digital Native: on the publication of the Homeland paperback, a letter to kids The US paperback of my novel Homeland comes out today, and I've written an open letter to teenagers for Tor.com to celebrate it: You Are Not a Digital Native. Read the rest... The climate change semantics wars rage on "Climate change" does a better job of describing what's happening to our planet than "global warming". But people seem to care more about global warming, according to a recent poll. Read the rest... Moscow activists step into the path of cars driving on the sidewalk Here's a highlight reel of the adventures of a Moscow youth-group whose members physically place their bodies in the path of cars whose drivers insist on driving on sidewalks to beat Moscow's epic traffic. Read the rest... Pay attention to new poultry processing regulations Speeding up the line and reducing regulatory oversight is an interesting combination to couple with a promise of safer food. Read the rest... Why Kickstarters succeed ... and fail Glenn Fleishman conducts a postmortem examination of his recent Kickstarter campaign. Read the rest... The neon of Hong Kong Hong King's visual culture museum M+ has a fantastic site devoted to the city's ubiquitous neon signs, a glowing landscape of pop advertising that was one of the inspirations behind Ridley Scott's vision for Blade Runner. Read the rest... Finally, Rick Baker's alien designs for Spielberg's pre-ET film Night Skies! Pioneering special makeup effects artist Rick Baker has Tweeted these amazing unseen creature designs from 1980 for Spielberg's never-made mean alien film Night Skies. Read the rest... Feminism and tech: an overdue and welcome manifesto Alan writes, "A group of nine women involved in the tech industry have posted a manifesto listing some of the awful sexist things that have happened in tech during the past few months. Read the rest... Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Larry Parker becomes KRS-ONE Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics! Read the rest... Jenga cat [Video Link, HT: @joesabia] Read the rest... Peter Watts's The Scorched Earth Society: A Suicide Bomber's Guide to Online Privacy Science fiction writer and biologist Peter Watts gave a spectacular talk to the Symposium of the International Association of Privacy Professional, called The Scorched Earth Society: A Suicide Bomber's Guide to Online Privacy (PDF); Watts draws on his two disciplines to produce a stirring, darkly comic picture of the psychological toll of the surveillance society. Read the rest... Florida man attempts to steal car with police officer inside "'I thought you were my ride,' Verite told the officer." Read the rest... The fascination of Rubik's cube Dan Nosowitz on the obsession with a mechanical toy invented 40 years ago--"simple in theory, it can be tremendously complex to conquer" -- and Google's obsession with it in particular. Read the rest... If Game of Thrones were animated by Disney Fernando Mendonça and Anderson Mahanski do the honors for G.R.R. Martin's brutal fantasy series. via Read the rest... Woodpecker vs. metal ladder Video link [via] Read the rest... Greenwald to release list of Americans under illegal NSA surveillance Glenn Greenwald has pre-announced his next Snowden-doc publication: a list of US citizens the NSA has subjected to illegal surveillance. Read the rest... Annoyed by Marvel movies that don't have real endings? "Comic book movies ... are becoming more and more like comic books themselves," writes Ryan Britt. "Serial adventures in which each installment leads to the next installment. Read the rest... The Rat King: On the Fascinations (and Revulsions) of Rattus In what he calls "an Experiment in Controlled Digression," Mark Dery touches on xenogastronomy, ortolan, Edible Dormouse, Victor Hugo's fondness for rat pâté, rat-baiting as a betting sport in Victorian times, the rat as New York's unofficial mascot, Luis Buñuel's pet rat, scientific research into such pressing questions as whether rats laugh, and whether rats will inherit the Earth as a result of climate change, Dracula's dominion over rats, and of course the (cryptozoological myth? well-documented phenomenon?) of the Rat King. Read the rest... The Wormhole Actualization Machine What's it like to get sucked into a black hole and travel at hypersonic speeds through a wormhole? Alan Watts built this Arduino-based psychedelic spacetime visualizer to find out. Read the rest... Help name the Bridge for Emperor Norton Thursday May 29th, in San Francisco, the Emperor's Bridge folks need help raising $50. Read the rest... Netflix Roulette picks a movie at random My first spin on Netflix Roulette landed on No Place on Earth: "This documentary sheds light on a long-untold story of World War II: the 18-month sanctuary of 38 Jewish refugees in a Ukrainian cave. Read the rest... Altair 8800 clone The Altair 8800 computer cost $621 when it was introduced in 1976. The Altair 8800 Clone is also $621, but it comes with 64k of static memory for free (in 1976, 1k of static memory for the Altair 8800 was $139). Read the rest... Raising Hell, Run DMC (1986) "I cut the head off the Devil and I throw it at you" Read the rest... Fuji X-T1, Zach Arias' street photography tips Zack Arias shares tips on using Fujifilm's X-T1 for street photography. Video Link Read the rest... The Abyssinian Princes Hoax of 1910 [Futility Closet #011] Irish practical joker Horace de Vere Cole orchestrated his masterpiece in 1910: He dressed four friends as Abyssinian princes and inveigled a tour of a British battleship. One of the friends, improbably, was Virginia Woolf disguised in a false beard and turban (far left in above photo). Read the rest... Follow us online:   forward to a friend   unsubscribe from this list

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